Letter 120: Polianus has returned to us and reported the favors he received, and both he and I are grateful.
Polianus has returned to us and reported the favors he received, and both he and I are grateful. Now, heading back to you again, he was eager to bring a letter -- not because he doesn't already stand high enough in your regard to mention other people's names with confidence, but because he knows that letters from me put you in a good mood, and he was afraid he'd be punished for not bringing one.
So I gave it gladly, for both reasons: to bring you some pleasure and to spare my friend a penalty.
AI-assisted translation - This translation was produced with AI assistance and has not been peer-reviewed. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek below for scholarly use.
Latin / Greek Original
Φλωρεντίῳ. (359/60)
Ἐπανῆκεν ἡμῖν Πωλιανὸς ὧν τε ἔτυχεν ἤγγειλε καὶ χά-
ριν εἴχομεν ἐγώ τε καὶ ἐκεῖνος ὧν ἔτυχεν ἐκεῖνος. νῦν δ’ αὖ-
θὶς παρὰ σὲ τρέχων ἔσπευσε γράμματα φέρειν οὐχ ὡς οὐκ
ἤδη παρὰ σοὶ τοσοῦτος ὢν ὥστε κἂν ἄλλου πρὸς σὲ μνησθῆ-
ναι μετὰ θάρσους, ἀλλ’ εἰδώς, ὅτι τοῖς παρ’ ἡμῶν ἡδίων γίνῃ
γράμμασιν, ἔδεισε μὴ δίκην ἀπαιτηθῇ τοῦ μὴ κομίζειν.
ἔδω-
κα τοίνυν ἀμφοτέρων εἵνεκα προθύμως σοί τε εὐφροσύνην
παρασκευάζων καὶ τὸν ἑταῖρον ἐξαιρούμενος ζημίας.
Revision history
- 2026-03-20v2.1.0-import
Initial corpus import from AI-assisted translation from original text.
Fields: letter text, metadata, source links. Source: https://github.com/OpenGreekAndLatin/First1KGreek/blob/master/volume_xml/libanius_10.xml
Related Letters
As long as your goodwill toward us keeps growing, we'll keep needing to write to you about our friends.
1. Your letter, dear friend, finds me dwelling in that quarter of the desert which is nearest to Syria and the Saracens. And the reading of it rekindles in my mind so keen a desire to set out for Jerusalem that I am almost ready to violate my monastic vow in order to gratify my affection.
Truly the grace of our God and Savior has not yet abandoned the human race.
When your letter arrived summoning Priscianus -- the dearest of all men to me -- a great buzz went through the city.
Sent to Florentius along with the preceding letter, which Jerome requests him to deliver to Rufinus. This Florentius was a rich Italian who had retired to Jerusalem to pursue the monastic life. Jerome subsequently speaks of him as a distinguished monk so pitiful to the needy that he was generally known as the father of the poor.